MIND AND SCIENCE TOWARDS THE CHAOS OF HISTORY IN STANISŁAW LEM'S 'TIME SAVED'

The article tackles the condition of structure and historical issues of Stanislaw Lem's first novelistic cycle. History, which in 'Time Saved' took the shape of chaos and cruelty of World War II, is seen by young Lem as a condition opposite to human cognitive activity destroying skillful individuals and distorting the aim of science. History also shapes the structure of the trilogy: the confusion of war is reflected in the incohesion of the cycle, which is a symptom of insufficiency of forms of traditional novelistic prose reserved for the theme of war. 'Time Saved' is a part of a broader process in the Polish post-war prose, though forgotten due to its socialist realism staffage. The article also points out at the philosophical and scientific problems present in the cycle and developed in the writer's later texts. 'Time Saved' is seen as a catalogue of Lem's favorite themes, from which we can picture the problematic lines of his fiction and essay writing.